Energy Audit

First, my conclusion. An energy audit is well-worth the $100 cost.

I contacted CenterPoint, my natural gas provider to schedule the advertised most thorough audit which included an infra-red camera search of my house. It took almost a month for the appointment after my initial call and the audit itself took around 2 hours.


First, they set-up a fan in my front door to pull a vacuum on the house. Then went around with an infra-red camera looking for air leaks into the house and cold spots. I'm happy to report that my attic looked good (see my previous blog post about blowing hundreds of pounds of insulation into the attic).

Some of the problems they found:
- leaking or poorly insulated rim joists in my basement
- leaking cracks around dryer duct penetrations and exposed holes in the top of the cinder block basement walls

- leaking attic access covers
- leaking around my window trim
- cold exterior wall next to the garage

Many of these I fixed with caulk and spray foam. For the cold exterior wall next to the garage, I attached 2" foam insulation sheet to the wall. The leaking window frames - I gently removed a portion of the window trim and sealed the crack between the window frame and the wall before re-installing the trim, and I caulked around the attic access and installed paper-faced fiberglass insulation in the rim joist areas of my basement.


Time will tell but I'm pretty certain that we'll see a reduction in our energy bills.